Prima Cinema - Page 3

This is the Home run event of the year

Anyone able to catch the preview last night?

Ok so... Did this event happen? Does anyone have anything to report on it?

I am having a private showing Monday in my Theater will report back Tuesday.....

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Art

+1

I was treated to an in home viewing of the Prima system last night. Before I can go into details I just want to clarify with them what can and can't be posted.

In general terms I was very impressed with the Company and Hardware. Prima Cinema is real and will go live shortly.

This will be the closest thing a consumer can get to the "Bel Air Circuit" with non compliant DCI equipment.

The security involved in playing the content is just short of a retinal scan.....

I will post more when I get the OK...

So everything is under NDA for now?

No formal NDA just respecting confidential nature of the product.

Here is some additional information:

I would like to thank Shawn Yeager, SVP Business Development, Prima Cinema for spending a few hours demonstrating the Prima System in my home.

The system delivers 10 Bit, 4:2:2 video. The Video portion was better than Blurray quality. To show case studio quality encoding I was treated to a preview of a film being released next month as well as one already out of theaters but directly encoded by a studio in PRIMA's format.



There is something about scanning the "Now Playing" menu and seeing movies in the actual theaters and some not even released yet.

The content is downloaded to Prima Hardware well in advance of theatrical release, at 12:01 AM day and date the movie is available. Cost is $500 per movie. The movie can be paused up to 24 hours. In order to play movies the user's fingerprint must be read by the system. As soon as the movie leaves the theaters it is deleted from the Prima system and no longer available for viewing.

The audio in the demos was 7.1 PCM but Dolby TrueHD is also available.

Thanks LJG.

10bit/7.1 LPCM/Day and Date！

Are all studios on board?

At $500 a showing, the studios really don't care if this makes it or not. It certainly is not going to have any impact on box office or future disc sales at that price. As long as they deem the security secure and Prima is paying the price set by the studios for the content, they should continue to supply the pipeline.

The problem here is I can't see how Prima is going to make it. While I don't know what their cost is to license the material, from my 25+ years in the Hollywood television business I can tell you Prima is not making much of a profit here renting the viewing material. And lets also realize the time to disc release is getting shorter and shorter.

Ok, it's better than BluRay. Is it $500 better for a limited rental versus an owned* BluRay and can the user base support the business model? Not a chance IMPO.

*OK so the content is always owned by the copyright holder, I just own the plastic disc. But I can still play a Bluray anytime I want as many times as I want for $29 first release. $12 three months later at Costco!

I guess they are selling this as a privilege/you are on the list thing.
Does bragging rights worth 500 a pop? Not for me, but I am not top 3% either.

You mean 0.003%

But if this thing has foot, it might position them well for the next big thing.

If the home video content delivery chain is indeed moving away from plastic medium and day&date for home is inevitable, Prime Cinema might be able to look at current venture as a down payment for the future. Or at least make the investors believe that.

I personally think K should be trying the same thing, given they are already in almost every hi-end HT.

Too late. Netfilx and many others have already entered the streaming market. They will succeed because they have a viable price point with image quality more than acceptable to the majority of the viewing population. And if they wanted to they are far better financially equipped to dabble in the ultra high end streaming business - if such a business even exists.

Glimmie:

The Prima Cinema is not a streaming service

How is the content delivered?

The content is downloaded to Prima Hard Drive for Playback from the units Hard Drive at a future date, totally different from streaming limitations

Down loaded from where? The internet, satellite? In technical terms that's streaming. The delivery channel does not have realtime bandwidth so the data is sent and collected over time.

In a technical sense that's no different than Netflix. Just bigger files and longer load times. Ok, more accuratly a "store forward" model since you can't watch it as it's being downloaded per their policy but the technology is the same.

This is how DCI is delivered over satellite and there's no technical why is couldn't be delivered over the internet. There is however a financial reason as it's a one way to many transmission so using dedicated high speed internet for such a service is cost prohibitive.

Yes we agree but bigger files, longer load times, a "store forward" model allows for much greater quality than streaming. That is my point

In addition to $500 for the release, what sort of special black box will be needed and how much will it cost?

I believe the retail price of the Server is $35,000

Who compares this service to netflix? There is nothing similar about the 2 services outside of the fact both receive content over the internet.

Netflix is crap, and I watch my fair share!

Netflix is aimed at the masses with cheap prices and at best "fair quality".

Prima is aimed at the elite who have the very best home cinemas money can buy, and who want to enjoy movies in their own home theater at the same time its playing in theaters.

Don't get me wrong, with those prices I don't know how successful the company will be, but I'm sure there has to be plenty of interest from the ultra high-end home theater market.

I know if money was no object, I would jump all over this. Its not even the 35K of front that is so bad, but $500 per movie is quite a hit. I guess if I invited 10 people over then its only $50.00 a piece. I love movies, and only want to watch them in my own theater. Some movies I'm ok with waiting months for the blu-ray release, but others are hard to wait for!

If you had to invest YOUR MONEY in either company (and you must choose one or the other) which would it be?

I think that answers my point.

Prima must think anybody with a seven or eight figure net worth has a home theater and is further a movie buff. That's a very, very, narrow profile to build a venture like this on.

I don't know if I would put my money in either. Netflix has it own share of problems!

Their server has a camera system like the Xbox Kinect. If it detects more than five people watching the movie, it will downres it to 480p and force you to wait 3 months to watch it. So your scheme would not work.

I'm quite sure that will not be allowed as part of the service contract. Barring that, would you feel comfortable asking your guests for $50 to watch a DVD?

Yeah, yeah,yeah, it's NOT a DVD! But the perception still holds.

Hahaha Damn! I thought I had it all figured out!

Trust me! That was a joke. I couldn't get my friends to pay $5.00 let alone $50.